The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan Book Review

The Dark and Hollow Places Book Review

Pub. 2011 - 374 pp

The Dark and Hollow Places marks the end of the primary Forest of Hands and Teeth series by Carrie Ryan, but there are also two short stories associated with the trilogy available for purchase as ebooks. This young adult zombie series is quick to breeze through and fun to read. I charged through all three in a week.

At the end of the second book, we discover that a few rare people have the power of immunity from the disease which kills after a bite, turning the doomed into flesh-eating plague rats (Dark City’s name for zombies). If an immune person suffers a non life-threatening bite, that person will survive the fever and possess the ability to walk undetected among the zombies. Catcher happened to be one of the immune. Because he was afraid of contagion, he pushed Gabry away and she ran into the arms of Elias. After being chased by the Recruiters who desperately wanted to to find and utilize any immunes, Elias managed to help Catcher and Gabry escape. But during their escape, they accidentally woke up a sleeping horde of millions of plague rats.

The Dark and Hollow Places begins and centers around Annah in Dark City. Unlike Gabry, she remembers her childhood and she remembers the moment she was separated from her twin sister in the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Elias and Annah pretended to be siblings orphaned by The Return when they entered Dark City as children and together they forged a meager living behind the city’s protective walls. But she never forgot Gabry and lived her life surrounded by guilt for losing her. At least she had Elias. As they got older, her feelings toward him began to change and the morning after he professed his love, he joined the Recruitment and left her alone.

It is three years later as the jaded Annah is about to leave Dark City when she sees an unmarred replica of herself on the bridge coming into the city. It is her twin sister Gabry. Before long she is reunited with Gabry and Elias and introduced to Catcher. That’s when she discovers that Elias and Gabry are in love. Heartbroken and in disgust, it is Catcher who helps pick her up off the ground.

The newly awakened horde of plague rats had followed Catcher, Gabry and Elias to Dark City and begin to pour into town. The only safe place is in the Sanctuary, an island controlled by the Recruiters. Using Catcher as a bargaining chip, they manage to get to the Sanctuary as the teeming mass of plague rats devours the city’s occupants. Now the Sanctuary and the Recruiters have their salvation – Catcher. They promise to keep the sisters and Elias safe as long as Catcher makes runs to the city to bring them food and supplies.

But the Recruiters aren’t easily controlled and their leader Ox is a harsh man with little compassion. There are few women on the island and whenever Annah is alone, she quickly finds danger. She is beaten, tortured, kept outside in a blizzard, starved, thrown into a cage and forced to watch captive people be fed to plague rats for sport. Elias and Catcher try to stop the men from their abuse but they are powerless. The Recruiters only need one of the three to survive in order to force Catcher into returning with supplies, so if two die – it’s okay with Ox. For the sisters, Sanctuary is anything but a safe place. The Recruiters are worse than the plague rats. Once again, the goals become escape and survival.

Compared to the first two novels, this book is the darkest. While Mary grew up in the safe confines of the Sisterhood in book one and Gabry grew up in the comfort of Vista in book two, Annah led a tough life in Dark City as a child, with no loving family to support her. Her body and face were terribly scarred after falling into a barbed-wire plague rat trap in the city. She grew up fighting for survival on a daily basis, protecting her few possessions from thieves and her body from men in the shadows. She was used to life in hiding. She hid her scarred face behind her hair and her emotions behind thick skin.

Annah tries not to show how hurt she is when she discovers that Elias and Gabry are together, but her twin sister can sense it. She pushed her heartbreak aside quickly to focus on trying to find a way out of Sanctuary. Catcher is another broken soul and naturally gravitates toward Annah. Together they form a bond but when Annah gets too close, Catcher shuts her down. Annah assumes it is because of her revolting appearance but in truth, Catcher pushes her away because he fears that he will infect her. The more he falls in love with her, the harder he tries to push her away which causes Annah to withdraw into herself.

Instead of following the same person through a set of books, we were able to see three different points of view from three related but very different characters. In the first book, we saw the world through Mary – a confined child who wanted to break away from the restrictive lifestyle of a religious upbringing. In the second book we follow Mary’s adopted daughter Gabry – a girl who felt safe within the walls of her small town and feared the world beyond. In this last book we follow Annah – a gritty girl made tough by living in the slums of Dark City.

Annah was my favorite character thus far. Her life was never easy but she always kept going. Even when the one person she trusted and loved the most let her down, and inside she felt broken, she still kept pushing forward. She didn’t hold a grudge, she never stooped to any level of immature behavior and she kept her priorities in line. Her only flaw was in the way she saw herself. She couldn’t love herself. She blamed herself for losing Gabry and blamed her scars for being alone. I connected with her character and was emotionally moved by Annah.

The dark quality to this book is a little disturbing. Annah had a tough life growing up but it doesn’t get any better once they reach the Sanctuary, it only gets works; it gets darker. Surrounded by the people who were supposed to protect her, Annah is repeatedly abused. The horror of the plague rats becomes a mere ancillary factor to support the dark twists and turns of this novel. It is the lack of humanity, a pronounced trait among the Recruiters, which is the terrifying beast in The Dark and Hollow Places.

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Rebecca Skane

Rebecca is the founder of the Portsmouth Book Club. Google it. It's free to join! Follow me on Goodreads! Read Full